Saturday, August 26, 2017

Lord Keynes — Larry White on the Origins of Coined Money: A Critique


The latest iteration in the controversy over theory of money, money creation, and historical origins of money use.

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective
Larry White on the Origins of Coined Money: A Critique
Lord Keynes

7 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

Christ settled the issue long ago in Matthew 22:21 and Paul adds further support in Romans 13:1-7.

It turns out that gold and silver are merely anti-counterfeiting devices since it was Caesar's ownership of the coins and his ability (and authority from God) to tax them back that gave them value.

So Jesus gave the correct answer about 2000 years ago.

André said...

Matthew 22:21: "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s."

Romans Romans 13:1-7: "For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing."

Is this some kind of proof? I don't think so. Both passages are coherent with commodity money and chartalist money theories.

You would need some real, scientific research to find anything resembling empirical evidence.

One example of such research is this one:
Robert W. Wallace - The Origin of Electrum Coinage
http://www.jstor.org/stable/505360?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
(I guess it's easy to find some free version of this paper, I don't know)

Andrew Anderson said...

Both passages are coherent with commodity money and chartalist money theories.Andre

The point is that the money belonged to Caesar and it would not matter WHAT IT WAS MADE OF, as long as Caesar recognized it as his.

It's the authority (God given, no less) and power of the State to seize property, imprison and even kill that gives fiat its value; a shiny metal pales in comparison to avoiding imprisonment and death. Therefore it is not precious metal content or backing that gives value to fiat but the taxation authority and power of the State that increases the value of precious metals when they are used to create or back fiat.

Matt Franko said...

Israel used commodity based coins (sheckels) at God's direction while we (Greece/Rome) used numismatics (denarii) thru our own authority apart/separate from God's direction...

It creates a contrast we can observe in the scriptures.... so we can today form an opinion on which system worked better...

I would take the numismatic system today hands down .... which is what we have post Breton Woods only the disgraced libertarian morons in control are too stupid to understand this...

Matt Franko said...

AA you have to always keep in mind WHO the Lord was talking to when He says something instructive...

Was he saying something instructive to Israel or was he observing something we Greeks/Romans were doing in contrast?

Matt Franko said...

This was an original good point from LK the other day related:

"Religious rituals and then temples had a preeminent place in ancient Greek society, and the city government’s major responsibility was to honour, appease and placate the gods by offering sacrifices. In this sense, the ancient Greek temple and city are not separate entities, but really one and the same. So the emergence of an ox unit of account can be seen as another state-based, institutional process affecting economic life."

This is a good point that the temple operations were integrated with the civil government ... and you can't just treat those old temple operations as a taboo like Christendumb (this is where the whole confusion about "money!" Comes from it's a taboo in contemporary Christendumb) .... if you are ever going to observe the contrast between the nations operating under authority and Israel under the law......

André said...

Andrew, they are clearly talking about taxes (tributes). There is no direct proof of chartalism there.